Ending

Dear Hazel,

This is hard for me to write. Today I'm 39 weeks into this terrible pregnancy and it may be ending today and you will have a new brother in the house for the rest of your life. It's never going to be the three of us again. I don't do pregnancy well- I hate it, in fact. I hated being pregnant with you, and I hate being pregnant now, though this is a hundred times worse than before. I'm in much more pain, sleeping even less, have a bigger belly and no muscle tone left to hold it up. It's pretty awful. But the worst part of it all, and I cry every time I think about it, is that I have not been able to give you the attention and love and time that I want to. It's hard for me to pick you up, I have no lap to sit on, you watch a lot of TV these days, and I can't even get on the floor to play. It breaks my heart, because you are so amazing and incredible and all I want to do is focus myself entirely on you.

You are going to be two years old in a few weeks, my girl and I couldn't have wished for a better kiddo. Your dada and I are in awe of everything you do, and after you go to bed at night, he and I swap stories about all the cool, funny, brilliant, sweet things you did that day. You talk constantly, and say such funny things, and you have got to be the happiest kid I've ever met. You are totally fearless; I can't think of a single thing that you are afraid of in this world. Scary for me, but I know it's going to serve you well in the future and that it's a sign of great intelligence to be so curious and outgoing. You are very physical and kinesthetic; we go to a tumbling class at the Y with your friend Bea, and the two of you tear the place up. You are obsessed with the older kids who are training in there at the same time as you. Kids on the parallel bars, kids climbing ropes 30 feet into the air, doing back flips. You watch them intently, then march right over to try and do it yourself. No fear. You love watching the show Yo Gabba Gabba, sing along to everything, and are on your feet dancing away through the whole thing. You love your friends, and talk about them, kiss and hug them, and get so excited and happy to play with them. You dance. All the time. You climb everything. You run and jump and fall down and crack yourself up. In fact, you never, ever cry when you fall. You love swimming in the Y pool with your dad and recently you love snuggling up (alone of course, since you hate being contained in any way) in the big armchair with your blanket, whom you recently bestowed with the name, "BEEKO". And oh my goodness you love to draw. You call it "eyes" because we showed you how to draw a face with "eyes, nose, mouth, head, ears, hair", etc. You get very frantic when you don't have a chalkboard, paper, crayons, markers or something nearby with which to draw eyes. You even draw them on the glass door when you shower with dada in the morning. You sleep with your mini Magna Doodle, the best four bucks I ever spent. You crack me up.

Since I've been so disabled and lame the last couple of months, and since you are so social and independent and active, I thought it was time for you to go to daycare twice a week. We found a fantastic home-based place here in Ipswich on the recommendation of a friend, and I signed you up for two days a week, hoping to get you settled in there before the baby comes. We took you there for an informal "interview" on a Saturday morning, and you immediately marched off away from us, in a strangers house, and started to play. When we left about twenty minutes later, you threw a fit. I knew you would love it. I started slow and put you in for a half day at first. You did great, of course and again threw a fit when I picked you up. You have been for a few full days now, and just love it. I'm so happy, but it's bittersweet. Every milestone is a separation, and this was yet another one that flew by without a chance to even process it. Per usual, you are off and running. It's a beautiful thing, and I wouldn't have it any other way, but I miss you, too- terribly.

I'm not one of these mothers that wants you to cleave to me, live with me until we are both elderly ladies out of some selfish need to OWN your soul. "Your children are not your children," and so forth. I know that. I want you to be exactly who you are. I want you to go out into the world whenever you feel you are ready and I want you to see and do everything. I want you to work a totally crappy job and try to support yourself on minimum wage. I want you to get so drunk you swear you're never going to drink again- several times. I want you to have beautiful lovers that whisper secret things in your ear that will make you blush, and I want you to get your heart broken...and break a million hearts. I want to see you discover your path and get so excited about whatever it is you were put on this earth to do. I want you to live in a roach-infested, peeling-paint, cracked-window, too-hot, drafty old apartment and love it because it is yours. I want to see what you do to that apartment to recreate your idea of Home. I want you to learn, and travel, and stumble and pick yourself up because you are one of the toughest people I know, and you have already been through so much. I want to see you get mad after paying for a terrible haircut. I want to meet you for lunch and listen to you go on and on and on about all the exciting things in your head, too wrapped up in it all to even ask me how I am. I feel so blessed that I can watch you do these things and that your dada and I get to be the point from where they all started. We love you more and more every moment of every day to the point that we think we couldn't possibly love you any more. But we do. It's crazy.

(I can hear you downstairs right now saying my name, looking for me and my heart is literally melting at the sound of your voice. Perfection.)

Soon, as in this week, you're going to have a brother, and I'm sorry. I know it's going to be hard for you, but I'm hoping that in time the good will outweigh the bad. I'm hoping that your heart opens and it will be another person for you to love and depend on, another person to anchor your home, a person you can turn to when you can't turn to us. I hope that the two of you will have each other after you have moved on from your dada and I. In the best world, that's what will happen. I hope for as much. I hope he will be the best man at your wedding, and will be a playful uncle for your kids. I hope you'll love each other, and that you someday get over the "When do we send him back?" phase of your relationship. It's a wild experiment, you silly wonderful girl.

Things went by too fast, my love. I enjoyed every damn second of it, and have felt blessed from the moment I met your eyes. I've never taken you for granted, and I pray that I never do.

So full to bursting with love for you,

Mama

Proud

This is where it all began...

In early labor on the day you were born.

Transformed

We were still attached

Your first breath, my first look in your eyes.

Your first kiss.

Melting.

Spectacular.

We thought we loved you as much as we could then, but our hearts are bursting more every day of your life.

Swollen, puffy, tired. Quiet alert.

Proud.

Some of Her Last Baby Pictures

Oh, this child. The moment she turned ten months old, the toddler came out, and the baby receded into the background. But this birthday tomorrow, as arbitrary as it can be, is the final cut- the coup de grâce of her babyhood. Every day she is doing something new. Today she said, "woof". She blows on her food like she is cooling it down. She does "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with her hands and dances and sways to any song she hears. Even car commercials. She stretches her arms up when I ask, "How big is Hazel?" and I say "soooooo big!" and she cracks up. She climbs all over me like I'm her gym. Today I caught her stacking blocks, two at a time! She puts thing in a container, instead of just dumping them out. She talks to herself. She points to her crib when she wants her nap. This child is amazing, beautifulandperfect.

It's hard for me to be sad about my baby disappearing, when this emerging kid is so cool. It's been such a dramatic year for our family and it's impossible not to reflect on everything that has happened. There is so much to look forward to though that I can't contain myself. I'll be printing out this blog thus far into a hardcover book for Hazel very soon. All of your comments are going to be a part of it. Thank you for being a part of our lives. Thank you for loving my daughter like one of your own. Thank you for all of the love and support this year. Thank you for taking an interest in our little life, for checking in on us, and for introducing yourselves and your babies to me. You are all a part of my families life, and will always be a part of Hazel's childhood.

There are so many things coming up in the future- on March 10th Hazel is scheduled to go back to Children's Hospital Boston for another procedure. The scar tissue in her esophagus has formed a stricture, or a narrowing and she has had a lot of difficulty swallowing beyond purees. It's frustrating, because developmentally she wants to feed herself, but physically she can't swallow anything that she might be able to self- feed. They will put her to sleep under general anesthesia and thread a balloon into her esophagus under xray. They will inflate it to a certain pressure that will tear her scar tissue and hopefully open her esophagus. This is a procedure that Hazel may have to have repeated several more times. Can I ask you all one more favor- will you please think of her, and send us your best, strongst, healthiest wishes? There is still the risk of a rupture of the esophagus, but there is also the opportunity to get her swallowing again without choking, regurgitating and aspirating. It would be really nice for us all to be able to relax a bit.

But there are other things to look forward to- spring is coming, and while we are sad to see this snowy winter go, we can't wait for days at the beach, walking along the river, swinging at the playgroud, exploring in the woods, spending time at the lake in Maine, and with our friends in Vermont. This will be Hazel's first year in the Warren, Vermont Fourth of July Parade and at the Tunbridge Vermont World's Fair. Our CSA farm will be opening for the spring season, soon and Hazel can participate in all of the fun things going on there this year. Hazel will be walking any minute and she is ready to explore the larger world. We are so looking forward to everything that is to come. We love you more than anything, Hazel Porkpie.

Countdown

I'm thinking back to one year ago tonight, eating the pumpkin tortellini at Chianti's in Beverly that is rumored to put women into labor.  I didn't even have to place my order- our waitress saw me coming from a mile away and said, "I know what you came here for!"  We had just been to see my OB where I was told my cervix had not budged and the baby had not dropped into my pelvis.  He told me that if I went into labor, it would be unsuccessful, and that I would need a Cesarean, dashing my hopes for a natural birth.  I remember sitting at dinner with Jamie, depressed and talking about how I had been so focused on my estimated due date of February 19th for so long, and here it was going to pass totally event free.  I remember thinking that even if it didn't work, that at least I got to eat pumpkin tortellini with Gorgonzola cream sauce.  I remember I was wearing my favorite black maternity top and jeans.  It was very cold, and traffic on Cabot Street wouldn't stop for me to cross.  It was our last night out together for a very long time.  It was the last time my family was only two people.  It was the last night of my old life.  Cliche, but my last night living in black and white.  It seemed like an ordinary night back then, but in remembering it... it was extraordinary.

My Family

Three is a magic number,
Yes it is, it's a magic number.
Somewhere in the ancient, mystic trinity
You get three as a magic number.

The past and the present and the future.
Faith and Hope and Charity,
The heart and the brain and the body
Give you three as a magic number.

It takes three legs to make a tri-pod
Or to make a table stand.
It takes three wheels to make a ve-hicle
Called a tricycle.

Every triangle has three corners,
Every triangle has three sides,
No more, no less.
You don't have to guess.
When it's three you can see
It's a magic number.

A man and a woman had a little baby,
Yes, they did.
They had three in the family,
And that's a magic number.

3-6-9, 12-15-18, 21-24-27, 30.
3-6-9, 12-15-18, 21-24-27, 30.
Multiply backwards from three times ten:

Three time ten is (30), three times nine is (27),
Three times eight is (24), three times seven is (21),
Three times six is (18), three times five is (15),
Three times four is twelve,
And three times three is nine, and three times two is six,
And three times one is three of course.

Now take the pattern once more:
Three! . . .3-6-9
Twelve! . . .12-15-18
Twenty-one!. . .21-24-27. . .30

Now multiply from 10 backwards:
Three time ten is (30 - Keep going), three times nine is (27),
Three times eight is (24), three times seven is (21),
Three times six is (18), three times five is (15),
Three times four is twelve,
And three times three is nine, and three times two is six,
And three times one... 
What is it?!
Three!
Yeah, That's a magic number.

A man and a woman had a little baby.
Yes, they did.
They had three in the family.
That's a magic number.

Working

I am plugging away at getting back to blogging! I have a half-ton of holiday pictures that I have to crop myself out of and de-red eye before I post them. I know it has been centuries since I updated here, but here is an abridged version of our holiday. Tune in later for details!

Langford Christmas Swap in Maine with a lot of "I'm not drunk! You're drunk!". We look forward to this Yankee Swap every year, and can't wait for the long standing family tradition of making the legal-to-drive-but-not-legal-to-drink kids drive us home at the end of the night.

Hazel's scary encounter with a giant stuffed giraffe on Christmas morning!

Chaotic Christmas Eve with Hazel's four cousins, Annabelle, Cecelia, Owen and Lorna- all under the age of two! Holy moley.

Photo-op with Santa in a bar in Jamaica Plain! (Yes, we took Hazel to a bar in Boston on her first Christmas. Meet my family.)

Donabed Christmas party where Hazel's every move was shadowed by a gaggle of tween cousins.

Christmas morning drive to Vermont with a car full of dogs and babies.

Christmas weekend with Grammy and Grampy trying ice cream for the first time, playing with her fifth cousin Oliver (also under 2!), opening lots of presents, and getting serenaded by the uncles.

A tandem Christening.

A double ear infection and blizzard that shut down our New Years Eve plans with friends in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, birthplace of Friendly's Restaurant.

Mama's emotional breakdown and subsequent four day silent yoga and meditation retreat at an ashram in the Berkshires.

Now we're back and trying to gain the upper-hand on life again! Hazel is still having a hard time swallowing certain foods, and we are still being followed by her surgeon. We will be for a long time. The new year promises to offer her some nutrition and speech/swallow therapy. I have been having some pretty annoying vertigo from my multiple sclerosis, and a three week head cold. So life has been going on... While we were happy to see certain events of 2008 go, I was also sad to see the year that Hazel was born blow right through. She is almost a year old, and I'm having a hard time watching my baby go! I had always heard how terrible being a mother can be; oh the sacrifice! Oh the loss of identity! Oh the lack of independence! Well, none of that bothered me in the slightest. I was so scared for motherhood, having spent my life internalizing these negative messages and instead found myself one of the luckiest women in the world. I know I'm a good mama (despite having my baby in a bar on her first Christmas) because I love it so much and was one of the lucky women who fell deeply, unreasonably in love with her the moment I saw her! Being Hazel's mother is a thousand times over the most incredible adventure and blessing I ever could have received. I'm so fortunate that she chose me to be her mama. I can't say it enough, and I don't know that anything I could say could ever communicate what I feel. I just spend every moment trying to make Hazel feel the love that we have for her. The world would be such a dark place without her. I only wish that I had not listened to the ugly, negative voices around me and had decided to bring babies into my family earlier. I think that because of my age, and because of multiple sclerosis, there will only be time for one more. Oh! But the world could use a thousand more Hazels!

Breaking My Promise

I had to come back to blogging really quickly to just say that today is a melancholy day. I noticed for the first time Hazel's body changing from Baby into Kid. Her visiting nurse came today to give her a check-up, and we stripped her down to her onsie to weigh her. Her limbs are getting noticibly longer and thinner, and her delicious thighs are losing some of the chunk and roll. Her belly is flatter and her torso is longer. God, is she long! It's very bittersweet. I'm going to miss my baby so much, but I'm so excited to meet my kid.

To Prove That Hazel Is Also My Daughter

Hazel's mama in 1976

Catch Up

WOW. We have a lot of pictures to catch up on here. Hazel has been a very social girl the past couple of weeks and luckily we remembered the camera at least half the time. Hazel will be 19 weeks old on Tuesday! I'm still trying to figure out when I can start going by months instead of weeks. I don't know the protocol. Here are some snapshots of Hazel doing her thing; rockin' sunglasses, teething, sitting in her Bumbo seat (video of strange jerking movements associated with the Bumbo are below), and dancing on the counter in hot-pants with her dad. The usual. Then there are a couple of pictures from a party Hazel attended last week for Corleigh and Janel, who both gave their notice at the North Shore Rape Crisis Center at the same time! Corleigh was schooled in why the Moby wrap is better than the Bjorn, and Janel took every opportunity to snuggle. Then there are some more pictures of Hazel hanging out, which she has been doing a lot of lately. Good for her.

I learned some funny facts about Hazel's birthday from some silly website, but they are kind of cool. Her birthstone is an Amethyst, she is a Pices, and her flower is the Violet or Primrose. She was born in the year of the Rat. This was cool; Hazel will start kindergarten in 2013, will be old enough to drive a car in 2024, will graduate with the class of 2026 (!) and will graduate from college in 2030, if she takes after her father. If she takes mom's route, she will more likely graduate in 2035, but will have some awesome adventures to tell my grandchildren about. At this time last year I was 7 weeks pregnant. She looked like this. She has come a very long way this year..

Rockin' her shades.

Yes, we are teething.

"Mama. Mama."

Dancing on the counter. Not in compliance with federal safety standards.

Corleigh finding love for the Moby. And for Hazel.

This is Janel about to start ovulating.

We love these socks! They came from Genius Babies, which isn't nearly as much of an obnoxious yuppie site as it sounds. They actually have really cool baby toys for reasonable prices and everything is stimulating and not branded with some obnoxious cartoon character. These striped socks have little bugs on the feet. When Hazel kicks, they rattle and when she grabs at them, the bugs wings crinkle. Since she discovered her feet last week, she gets a lot of enjoyment from this game.

Mama is going in to bite Hazel's chinny chin chin! This cracks her up and makes her squeal and shriek so loud!

Chewing her silver teether from Cousin Michelle.

This is a new, adorable thing Hazel does. I started giving her cloth diapers or baby washcloths to clutch and chew on. I think it felt good on her teeth and she loves grasping soft things and bringing them to her mouth. Then I noticed that she was rubbing them on her face and eyes when she was tired. She would pull the washcloth or cloth diaper over her face when she was really sleepy. Now, when she gets overstimulated, she pulls the cloth up over her face and goes right to sleep. If she doesn't have a cloth, she fusses until I give her one, then she instantly calms down, pulls it up over her face, and passes right out.

This is actually Hazel watching TV. No, I do not let her watch TV, but when it happens to be on, she is drawn to it. I put her down for a minute and when I turned around, she was engrosed in VH1. She looks so serious.

This is what we call her Cool Girl outift. Her rainbow legwarmers are from Baby Legs.

The Biggest Adventure Yet

I'm so excited! We're going to New York City with Hazel! I can't wait to bring her to the city for the first of many trips for her. We're staying in sort of a strange place, down in the Financial District which is slightly out of the way, but as long as we're downtown, I'm happy. I'm going to spend some time visiting friends, we're going to take Hazel to MoMA (of course) and maybe walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to wander around DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights. I want to take her to Chinatown and SoHo ad to the Central Park Zoo. I hope that she falls in love with New York, and if someday she moves there with stars in her eyes, then I will be so happy for her because I think that everyone should live in New York if they can, even if it's just for a year.

If anyone has any ideas about what else we sould try and do in NYC, then let me know. I've never been there with a kiddo before, so this will be a slightly different trip than the ones we've taken in the past. (Fung Wah to Chinatown, crappy hotel in Murray Hill or a friends floor in Alphabet City, dinner on East 6th and bars in Lower East Side, somehow ending up at a party in Williamsburg until dawn, brunch with friends at noon and a day of wandering around SoHo spending money. Then fondue and hair-of-the-dog in Chelsea.) This trip I think will be a bit more mellow with earlier bedtimes, unless my friend Justin has a show in which case Hazel will get to go to her first comedy club at the tender age of seven months. Anyway, this will be our first vacation together, and I simply cannot wait.

100 Days, 365 Days

One year ago today, at 1:00PM a sperm and an egg met for a tango and Hazel was created. Today she is one hundred days old, or three months, two weeks and two days old. Or three-hundred and sixty-five days old. However you choose to see it, today is a milestone. She is sleeping on my chest as a write this because last night she hardly slept at all. I still can't believe she is here.

Getting pregnant was not easy for me. I never thought it would be. We began fertility treatments the same month we moved into our new house, one week before Christmas 2006. It was not easy. I lost friends who did not seem to understand what a difficult process it was. Rifts were formed in relationships after so many insensitive comments were made. I told everyone what was going on, because being infertile is nothing to be ashamed of, and its easy to feel so much shame. I had these horrible, intrusive, painful procedures and I pounded my body with carcinogenic drugs that made me bloated, aggressive, depressed, tired and it didn't work. I felt so alone because so few people understood.

My doctor wanted to move on to "the big guns" as he called it and I started to inject myself nightly with absurd doses of artificial hormones that made every muscle scream in pain, made my head pound with a migraine that wouldn't go away and made me so weak and tired that I couldn't climb the stairs. I bloated more. I cried and cried and felt sorry for myself because no one else did. Every morning I had to drive fifty miles round-trip to the clinic at 6:00am for blood draws. My arms were bruised, my belly sore from the hormone injections. After my blood draw, I would go to my office, meet with my clients, run support groups and go on with my day feeling like I just wanted to lay down and die. People said, "You just need to relax," and "A lot of women who wait as long as you did can't get pregnant," "I'm not really ready for you to have a baby anyway," "Having a baby is just like getting another dog," and I would just stare at them, wondering how they could be so rude, so ignorant, so insensitive. Worst of all, my supposed "best friend" just stopped talking to me. When you face a personal crisis, you really see peoples true colors. On the other hand, people who I never expected, totally stepped up and amazed me with their compassion, understanding and humor. Thank the gods for the people who without even trying managed to say just the right thing at just the right time and they probably didn't even know that they did it.

So in exactly 39 minutes from now is the anniversary of when I nervously staggered into the doctors office in Reading. Kevin came in to tell me that there were 1.4 million sperm loaded up in the catheter. I gave him a high-five. Dr. Weiss and four nurses performed the IUI and it was pretty uneventful. It wasn't a high point of my life. After I lay there for ten minutes, I drove home and watched daytime television with my feet up.

Two weeks later I was sitting at my office, waiting for the call with results from my pregnancy test. They were supposed to call my cell phone in the late afternoon like they usually did, so I was caught off guard when my office phone rang around 11am. Janel was there with me when I found out that I was pregnant, sitting at my desk in the North Shore Rape Crisis Center where I worked. She was the perfect mama to share the moment with. I called Jamie to tell him, and he actually dropped the phone. Thus began Ms. Donovan's Wild Ride through pregnancy. The first trimester was scary, not knowing if Hazel was going to choose to stick around or not. But she did, and we got through it. I hated being pregnant, and I would go through labor a thousand times before I had to be pregnant again, but everything was worth it when I finally got to meet my silly, perfect daughter. Plus, I can use everything I had to go through to get pregnant with her for the best guilt-trip of all time.

Birth Photos

Maybe Mother's Day has me all weepy, or maybe Hazel's Three Month Birthday tomorow has me all emotional or whatever. Maybe it's because I just found out that my friend Steve (my first boyfriend ever!) just had a daughter named Sofia Louise and I know just what he is feeling right now. All I know is that I had a sudden urge to revisit my birth phtos, and I realized that I had never posted them on the blog. I think that I considered them private property when they were first taken, but now with a little bit of distance I just want to show them off. I'm sure that not everyone will think they are as beautiful as I do, but I sure am proud as hell whenever I see what I did. I still can't believe the whole thing happened. It was easily the best moment of my life and I've never felt so transformed as I did in THIS MOMENT. I hope that other people are as amazed by this as I am, and I hope that when Hazel is old enough to understand whats going on in these pictures that she is proud of me, too.

Hazel's first picture. I can only imagine what she is experiencing one second out of the womb. She is probably mostly just cold.

I love this picture because my midwife Teri looks so happy and proud, too. Hazel is front and center, and Jamie and I are both seeing her for the first time. I love my hands reaching out.

Jamie reaching for his daughter.

"Ohmigod this isn't real!" were my first words. It felt like a dream.

I love that Jamie and Hazel are holding hands.


And Hazel's first kiss. My favorite picture. It charms me to know that no matter where Hazel ends up in her life, no matter what dirtbag boys she runs around with, that her first kiss will always be from a man who truly loves her more than anything.

The first moments with Jamie and our doula, Lorryn who got me to breathe.

While they were sewing me together again, the lights were so bright and all I could think was that it must have really been bugging her.

Settling in as a family.

Hazel being snuggled.

Soon after this moment, three of the four grandparents practically assaulted a nurse and kicked in the door to the room. I have to say that I'm still not happy about the disruption as it was totally unexpected and not something that I had planned for. I was half-dead, freshly stitched up like the Bride of Frankenstein and was not in a fighting mood. I think that the next time I do this birth thing, I'm going to crawl off into the woods with Teri and Lorryn and not tell anyone where I'm going!

So that was twelve weeks ago today. In some ways it seems as though it was a moment ago, and sometimes it was a lifetime ago. Someday I'll write out the whole birth story for Hazel. I remember it so clearly and in excruciating detail. Easily the most bad-ass thing I've ever done.

One Plus One Equals One and a Half

So we have hit the two month marker. In many ways, I feel as though Hazel has been with us for much longer. Sometimes it seems as though she arrived yesterday. Either way, she has managed to fit herself seamlessly into our lives. Maybe it is because I've been used to changing my life around for the dogs, but I find myself thinking that this parenting thing really isn't that hard. It isn't nearly as difficult as people told us it would be. We still manage to go out and see our friends. We go out to dinner with each other just about as much as we did before Hazel. Our house is clean, the fridge is stocked, her room is all finished, the dogs are exercised. We certainly are busy, but its a comfortable busy. I still found time to give myself a pedicure and I take a shower every day. We get a little less sleep, but that won't last forever and it isn't that bad.

The first couple of weeks were hard; trying to breastfeed while recovering from labor and delivery and having visitors every day all day was not easy. If it wasn't for Jamie, I think everything would have fallen apart. There was one really terrible night when Hazel was screaming and Jamie was at work very, very late. I almost lost my mind, but it ended and its far in the past now and it has not happened since. I am in complete awe of single mothers now.

I especially love our mornings together. Hazel wakes up next to me talking to herself, all wide-eyed. She gives me a smile when I open my eyes and I feed her. She has a long period of alertness and we use that time to play together and read books. Then I can put her in her bouncer seat in the bathroom while I shower. She starts to get overwhelmed and a little fussy, so I usually pop her in her sling so that she can calm down and nap while I clean up, make coffee, and let the dogs out. Our day the consists of bursts of sleep, play, running around town, and doing whatever needs to get done. Not everything gets done, but mama doesn't care. When Jamie gets home, I'm pretty sick of being mama so he gets to snuggle Hazel while I tie up loose ends around the house. There was a time when she wouldn't let me put her down, even for a second, even if she was in a deep sleep. That seems to have ended, so now I have all this free time when she is sleeping in her seat. I honestly think that when she is running around things will be harder than this, but way more fun, too. I'm really looking forward to all of that. This part, while not hard, is really mundane a lot of the time. That has been more of a struggle.

I had initially been a bit upset that we had no help with Hazel, especially when Jamie was having to be at work all the time, but now it doesn't bother me at all. Now I think that I'm glad that I didn't have much interference because Hazel and I have been able to learn about one another and make our own world together. We got through it with each other she and I, and we are a pretty tight team now.

Weekly Pictures v.6.5

This set of pictures is for week six and a half. Enjoy!

Hazel's first visit to daddy's office in Cambridge

The Pit: "This is where mama used to go when she skipped school to hang out and smoke with the punk rock kids, sweetheart."

The Donovan's reliving 1991 in The Pit. We felt like such tourists.

Hazel in Harvard Square

Flossie always sits at Hazel's feet when she sleeps.

She was in a deep sleep with her hands up in the air like that for about an hour.

Hector puts up a fight for the Boppy.

The many faces of Hazel getting kissed.

Floor napping. Flossie joins in.